Web of light. Part 1-7

"I"m raising it."

"Support."

"I"m doubling up!"

"Pass."

If the first game was marked by careful probing, in which Yokai and the schemer literally tore Rinko, who took a careless risk, to shreds, then the "real fun" went on! Kuzaki"s emotions from the game were somewhat distorted by the fact that she would have to "shoot" anyway, it was not for nothing that the snake so confidently supported Kaname, who had outsmarted herself, and therefore, instead of closely following the games, she sat on pins and needles, giving false signals to her opponents. She had no doubt that she would lose, having assessed the class of the participants in the first game, and therefore she took risks, bluffed and mixed up the opponent"s cards in every possible way, not on purpose — and therefore effectively.

Hiroe, who held her poker face perfectly, strained her abilities, trying to keep track of everything, including the card shirts. The problem is that the cards were new and the shirt was exactly the same, but mathematics in poker begins to solve more than the case when the game drags on. The brains of the short-haired girl literally overheated, pulling out limited capacities by nature itself, promising headaches and apathy for tomorrow. He"ll survive!

And Shizuka was surprised to realize that she was losing! The fourth game, and the chips slowly flow over to the meanly calm Hiroe. It is necessary to bring the devil out of balance! Mizuchi lowered her eyelids, unfocusing her eyes into her favorite "drowned woman look," and slightly released her aura, trying to put pressure on her opponents. Of course, it was possible to stupidly "get into the brain," but an honest ayakashi would never do that. By overstepping other rules, you stop being yourself so much that you want to die later. Yes, she"s been through that too.

The demon"s aura captured the figures of the opposing girls with its edges, but instead of slightly disturbing people, it brought the opposite effect — Rinko did not feel anything at all.: "another amulet that doesn"t work properly" the snake stated with longing, but the exact opposite story happened to Hiroe — she suddenly cheered up and even smiled, and magic and auras began to flow two orders of magnitude faster than into Rinko"s amulet. The snake, who could not believe her senses, activated thermal vision and made sure that the brain of the shorn girl, working with a temperature almost half a degree higher than normal, was rapidly returning to normal, absorbing the parasitic manapot of the yokai. Moreover, she confidently started winning! Hiroe"s oddities formed a big picture and gave a clear answer to how a little girl can be so strong. Hastily pulling her aura away from the strange couple, Mizuchi barely managed to win back her last black chip in the fifth game (initially, each had two). So, following the results of a fierce poker battle of five games, Shizuka turned out to be the loser, Kaname stayed with her own and Rinko suddenly turned out to be in the lead. That"s it!

"Well, Rinko-chan, you won, and you should be the first to ask questions. The loser," Hiroe broke the thickening silence after the game and immediately switched hands.

"Er-er-er..." Kuzaki drawled, "Tell me some secret of yours, Shizuka. You are welcome."

"A secret?" Ayakashi narrowed her eyes merrily "It"s easy! I"m not human, you know. I"m actually a spirit, and you call my people Yokai... Isn"t it scary at all?" Mizuchi asked, looking at Rinko"s satisfied face (hooray, Yuto"s plan has worked!) and Hiroe"s delighted, anticipating grin.

"Nah," the short-haired piggy snorted, "You"re actually more human than many of my friends, who are clearly trying to degrade towards monkeys as soon as possible. And, I want to say, it would not hurt to prove your words."

Instead of answering, the Goddess of Rivers casually made a drop of water about the size of a soccer ball roll out of the shell and hung it in front of Kaname"s nose.

"I believe it now!" she whispered in a strangled voice. You can understand as much as you want that you calculated everything correctly, but such a collision with something you don"t believe in is shocking!

"Is that enough?" Mizuchi asked, and Rinko nodded and put one of the black chips aside. "By the way," Shizuka grinned, looking at Kaname"s dipping and pulling brush into the levitating water, and sent a drop back into the sink.: washing pans and dirty knives — since she had to open up anyway, why not help the hostess? "You two are also unusual personalities, I can tell you. Hiroe, you too... mmm... You"re not an ordinary person, and Rinko, you"re a very unusual person. At least this is the first time I"ve seen this rarity on a human." And the snake pointed her finger at her bangs.

"And?!" Hiroe leaned forward.

"Spend a chip, it"s all fair, you know!"

Hiroe and Rinko exchanged glances and simultaneously pulled out a black chip from their piles.

"I"ll start with you, Hiroe-chan. You see, I"ve been wondering who you remind me of: those all-seeing eyes, those grins, the ability to literally read the owner"s personality through things... an overloaded brain and the ability to make variable predictions, which manifested itself when you began to pull my mana. You felt my moves, right? You don"t have one iota of mana in you, but the basic abilities of each clan, which gave them a decisive advantage in the fight against the Yokai, were originally non-magical. So Hiroe Kaname, how far can you trace your family?"

"Before Grandma," Hiroe replied, involuntarily overwhelmed by the "revelation."

"Was your grandmother by any chance an orphan picked up by another family?"

"Where are you from... Oh, I see. And what is my "supposed to be" last name?"

"Ykoin. A clan of hunter-detectives. They have achieved impressive heights in controlling their own consciousness and brain... But don"t get your hopes up. The clan won"t accept you anyway, because, as I said, you don"t have any magic at all. Apparently, your grandmother was the so-called "empty branch" of the family, and she was placed with other children in a clan orphanage. And then... There was a terrible war then... You know. I actually wonder how you can use at least some of your abilities, even without magic, if no one has trained you.

"What about me?" Rinko asked after a pause.

"And you," Yokai grinned, "I managed to get the "Blessing of the Spirits" somewhere. Yes, yes, the hairpin on your head. Only One-eyed Blacksmiths make these, you know, and you have to do a great favor for them to give the hairpin to other spirits. And for Ayakashi to give such a thing to a person... Consider, for all the spirits whose mind has not faded, there is a great pass fixed on your bangs. No one in their right mind would encroach on someone marked with a Blessing, and I won"t even ask why you were given one. Curiosity killed the cat, you know! It is impossible to transfer such a thing, it becomes attached to the owner and stays with him forever... Well, are you going to ask me anything else?

"Well then..."

Yokai-with-principles and the would-be magical but talented Yakoin synchronously put forward the chips and demanded in unison:

"Then tell us the secret of Yuto!!!"

"All right," Rinko replied, inwardly ready for such a turn, "but I"ll have to start from afar. Ok?"

"Come on, we"re listening, you know!"

"Good. So, a long time ago, five hundred years ago or more, the Amakawa family lived in Hokkaido, no clan at that time..."

The extended meditation finally ended, and Yuto, rubbing his stiff legs and back, bowed to sensei. Picking up the phone, he received a bunch of text messages and a mark on the map that coincided with the house. "Shizuka has arrived," "Dinner is ready," and "We talked, successfully." Ugh, you can exhale and unclench your fingers on the shaft of the remote stunner in your pocket. And we need to go faster, anyway...

...The first thing Yuto Amakawa, who returned to his native penates, heard were bursts of cheerful girly laughter in three voices. He looked into the living room and found all three of them in front of the TV: the girls were watching the movie "The Bell".

Part 17

Chapter 93.

If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it, you know. As an illustration of my abilities, I blocked the Ferry's ability to work magic on the vessel. An ordinary glass jug, however, with a lid. However, as in the case of the counter in Noihara, Shizuka managed to push through the barrier by force... but to do this, she had to half "let go" of her aura, which filled the entire room. If I hadn't treated the walls with a "Ferry" a long time ago, all the magicians in this part of the city would have known about the presence of a strong yokai in my house. Is she the one who trusts me so much, just like that?! As always, I didn't feel anything (I just saw it), but Rinko and Hiroe clearly shivered. The kitchen immediately felt damp and a little chilly.

Finally, the snake stopped twirling the decanter, removed excess water from the air, and disguised itself again. We went into the living room and sat down — I on a chair, Mizuchi perched on a stool, and Kaname and Kuzaki on the sofa. They were silent.

"There's too much unexpected information, you know." The Goddess of Rivers spoke first. We need to think about everything. But first tell me, Yuto Amakawa, why did you invite me to your house? Humans and yokai... not a very suitable company, you know.

Yeah, and here's a "serious conversation." The main thing is not to lie, I'm sure Shizuka will notice the lie — a couple of trifles, this is not poker!

"You know," I continued, matching the snake's tone, "after trying your cooking, I didn't notice any differences in the result. To be honest, I didn't even look for it, I wanted to eat so much, but everything is so delicious here!

"It's not the most convenient example to look for differences..."

"Do you think it's necessary to look for differences in physiology? Recently, twenty-five centuries ago, some scribes argued about what a man is. Do you know what the canonical form of the answer was?"

"And what is it?"

""Bipedal erect without feathers"!"

Rinko and Hiroe giggled in unison, even the snake smiled. I suspect that the ancient Greek philosophers also served as a good template for jokes for their students. Okay, you almost convinced me, you know.

"Now tell me, Yuto, why did you invite me to your place? Since you knew who I was?"

That's a pushy one! Okay, I'll answer the other part of the question.

"I called you because I wanted to meet you again, that's all. And, by the way, this is the first time I've heard that there were any special conditions for an invitation to visit."

"That's it, it's fair! The Amakawa were famous spirit tamers..." The snake said a little more quietly.

Damn, he's thinking fast! The bottleneck in my logical constructions is because in the reasoning "how do I know that you won't hurt me if I believe you", there is no logical answer to give.

"I don't remember anything like that," I said again, quite honestly. "I had friends among the spirits, a white cat named Himari, a brownie... Unfortunately, I don't remember much... But I'm sure they were my friends. And I'm not going to divide my friends according to the principle of who consists of what!"

"That's what you're saying now. What will happen when you turn sixteen?"

"Well, take it and check it out!"

Fuck! You should slap yourself in the mouth! It's so stupid to blurt out on emotion! Now you have to convince her of your love again... Convince in...

"Hmm... An interesting idea, you know! I'll take advantage of your suggestion."

what?!

"Your family refused to be exorcists, but I'm sure the Circle will show interest in you after removing the seal of suppression. Or maybe even earlier. Since you've decided to follow a peaceful path, I'll help you stay on it..."

Is she serious, or should I decipher this high-sounding, however logical explanation as "with such an ability, I won't give it to anyone anyway"? Yes, I hope I made the right bet on the character of Mizuchi based on the results of the meeting in the forest and the manga I once read...

"...That's why I'll stay to keep an eye on you."

"Hey, hey, stop! Not so fast!" and this is Rinko. "What means: "I'll stay to look after you"?!"

What a dynamic! Just a minute of lengthy discussions and immediately the specifics! Shizuka, I respect you!

That's what it means. I will live here and make sure that Amakawa Yuto does not lose his way.

""Live here"?" The confused Rinko immediately highlighted the key parameter. Well, yes, well, yes. After all, I only told my friend about the need to establish contact with the Yokai community. Actually, that's what I thought would happen. Manga is a manga, but why do spirits sit in the forest and not in the city? My "inner" plan was this: to convince Mizuchi, the only yokai who (as I said above) would not try to make me, if not an artifact slave, then a tributary, "unfastening the roof" of some amulets per month, of her usefulness. It's still risky... but it's no less risky than waiting a few more years to get in touch with someone armed and protected. In addition, it would turn out that I had "deceived" Shizuka with my behavior at the first contact, but otherwise everything was logical: I met, remembered, and chose the path. And an exchange — "help with amulets on my part, help with information and, possibly, abilities on Mizuchi's part" — is the optimal strategy, let mutual trust arise first... but someone immediately took the bull by the horns!

"To live here," the Goddess of Rivers repeated. Be close. If the owner of the house doesn't mind. Wow, how polite, they didn't ask such questions to the canonical Yuto... because it's a test. Ha, and the snake understood my slightly veiled advertisement exactly the right way — an offer to cooperate.

"I don't mind, the house is big and pretty..." then the smile on my lips faded, "... empty."

It wasn't really a game. Indeed, you can turn a house into a fortress as much as you like, but the fact that you are the only defender does not make it any more pleasant.

"Yuto..." — it's Rinko again. Shake my head. Smile.

"Everything is fine. I really agree, but..." I glanced at Shizuka. "...If we share the household chores, too. It's pretty hard for Rinko and me to keep the whole house clean by ourselves."

"It's settled, you know."

"What, you're just going to move in with Yuto?" My neighbor couldn't wrap her head around the outcome of the impetuous negotiations.

"What will the neighbors think?"

"I'll say that my very distant relative has arrived, and that's it."

Now it was Kuzaki's turn to shake his head. However, there is a great way to "crush" an impressionable girl.